The REAL reason for Trump's tariffs on Australia - and how it could send costs soaring for your next visit to the doctor

Donald Trump could force Australia to review its Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme to escape being hit with more US tariffs, threatening the future of cheap medicines. Donald Trump could force Australia to review its Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme to escape being hit with more American tariffs - threatening the ability of the sick to buy cheap prescription medicines Dr Patricia Ranald, a public policy expert with the University of Sydney's School of Social and Political Sciences, said the Trump Administration could force Australia to review its PBS as part of negotiations to get an exemption on American import tariffs on medicines. Former trade minister Simon Birmingham, who held the portfolio during the first Trump administration, said successive American governments regarded the PBS as an obstacle to drug company profits The Americans could argue that while it's not a tariff on US pharmaceutical imports into Australia, it's a barrier to making a bigger profit. US goods into Australia already incur zero tariffs, with the 2005 Australia-United States Free Trade Agreement eliminating import taxes on 97 per cent of Australia's non-agricultural exports and two-thirds of agricultural exports. Australia's PBS was a sore point in 2004 when the US, under then president George W. Bush, negotiated the Australia-United States Free Trade Agreement when John Howard was prime minister Dr Naoise McDonagh, a senior lecturer geopolitics and international trade at Perth's Edith Cowan University said the Trump Administration was likely to argue the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme was a trade barrier to American drug companies But McDonagh said the Trump administration could use ridiculous arguments to imply Australia's 10 per cent Goods and Services Tax and biosecurity quarantine measures on agricultural imports amounted to trade barriers.